Imagine Earth is a futuristic world simulation. Your job as a colony manager is to explore and populate various undiscovered planets. Raise great cities and supply the needs of your growing population by building power plants, farms and factories. Will it end up in desolation or wealth and prosperity?

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Early Access Game

Get instant access and start playing; get involved with this game as it develops.

Note: This Early Access game is not complete and may or may not change further. If you are not excited to play this game in its current state, then you
should wait to see if the game progresses further in development. Learn more

What the developers have to say:

“Get early access to the development version of Imagine Earth. Attention: Please be prepared to handle with serious issues and possible interruptions of game functionining.Features of the current version:

Missions Tuto, Joma and Lorian

Free Play mode

You will receive a new version with the next finished mission approximately every two months and be an integral part of our development community!”

February 26

We plan to update the early access version with Alpha 9 next Friday. The glorious final campaign mission and the AI we are working on will not be part of this release. But there will be a lot of other new features that will be fun and worth a try.

So let's keep this short and go with some more screenshots.

What did we do the last 7 days?

The AI now considers the influences that buildings have on each other. This way they make much betters choices on what building to take and where to place it.

We completed the basic trading system. You can read more about it in last weeks post and see a screenshot of it in the header.

Destroyed City Centers can now always be rebuilt. This is because we realized that it really s*cks to rebuild your whole city in a new location when your City Center has been destroyed by a twister or something else (and you didn't unlock the rebuild tool from the research).

Sandbox Galaxy: This one is my weeks favorite! You can create a new planet and it is saved to the sandbox galaxy so you can (re)play it anytime. This is the foundation to integrate Steam Workshops for planet sharing into the game (YEAH!).

The free game mode now will give you coins and new city centers until you reach 20 mio people.

Currently the population stops to grow when you are out of resources. Thanks to the feedback of one dear follower (thanks Bora!) we realized that it's much more interesting to let the population grow based on the space available. This means you will have to deal with the problem of supplying enough resources. The population growth is based on the level of difficulty so you can still keep it easy if you want.

The Warehouse is a new building type that will have some deeper influence on the gameplay. You can use it to store overproduced resources. If your population grows too fast or some buildings are destroyed the resources from your warehouse are used to meet the demands of your people. The screenshot shows a small bar over the goods balance representing the total amount of stored goods. In the top left you can see the absolute amount for the focused warehouse.

Crash the server: Ok, this one was really stupid. I (Martin) decided to have a short try updating some libraries on our server and ended up crashing the whole thing at 2am. Not the best way to finish your day I can tell you. Luckily it's working again thanks to the backup made by our hosting. Thanks a lot for this feature.

What's planned for next week?

Main focus is still on the Bora mission and maybe we will add the volcanoes that didn't make it last week. But since the next Alpha version is due Friday 6th of March, we will focus on things that can be used within the release. For instance the natives on Rounos will start to trade their special food with you and we hope to add a first version of the sandbox editor so you can terraform your generated planets.

Anything else?

Nope. We have to get back to work now. There are things to be done. You know.

February 19

We learned that some of you would like to follow our work in more detail. This post is a first try to give you some insight into our weekly development.

What did you accomplish during the last 7 days?

Jens:Hey Guys. One of various things that I did this week was creating the concept and design for a planetary trade system that looks pretty promising.

Next I made a first draft for some new characters (see post title):
The space merchant will come around when you have some valuable gems and products to offer to trade them for research tokens and more... The Electronic Employer is the ultimate planet exhauster. Major Eko is good for sub-quests regarding environmental issues. The Illuminati are the natives of Bora. Living in their pyramids they got a very strange technology to turn the planets forces against you if you turn out not being a friendly visitor.

Additionally to these new characters I made a design concept video for how the communication with these guys might look much more sci-fi style in the future. It's on our new youtube channel and you really should set the quality to high.

Martin:First thing I have been working on is an artificial intelligence for computer players that will be used in the Bora mission. Right now it simply starts to grow it's population by building districts. Resource buildings are built whenever required. Some parts are still missing though. The AI still has to learn that building a lot of fisheries next to each other doesn't make sense. In addition it only grows it's city to level 2 for now.

Next I have started to implement the trading system we have been discussing lately. It will allow you to buy resources from natives and to trade with friendly AI players.

In between I added the new characters and temple buildings for the Illuminati to the game.

The last thing (some minutes ago) was implementing the Warehouse that stores overproduced goods so they can be used for bad times (see the bar over the goods balance at the top center of the screenshot).

What will you do this week?

Our main focus will be adding all gameplay elements necessary for the Bora mission. There might be some volcanos, additional AI routines and other stuff like that. If there is some free time available we will create a galaxy screen for your sandbox planets. This screen will allow you to "discover" new planets which means that you will be able to keep the generated planets and collect them on a screen similar to the one from the campaign. One day (or hopefully already in some weeks) we will also add the ability to terraform those planets and to add and remove all available buildings so you can create interesting scenarios like demolished cities.

Anything else?

The AI we are building for the computer players on Bora is only a first step. We want to make this available for the free play, too. But obviously it will take some more time to make sure the computer becomes a good player and opponent.

We hope this was somehow enlightening for you.
If so please leave a short "great" in the comments.

Reviews

“Imagine Earth is a refreshingly streamlined and charming apporach to civilization sims - and one with plenty of room to grow as it wades through Early Access.”
GameZone

“This environmentally-conscious title may very well prove to generate news in the months to come.”
PixelJudge

About This Game

Imagine Earth - Planetary Colonization

A futuristic world simulation. Your job as a colony manager is to explore and populate various undiscovered planets. Raise great cities and supply your growing population by building power plants, farms and factories. Key to fast expansion is to ensure the supply of four basic resource classes. The challenge is to deal with whole planetary ecosystems and their natural limitations in fossile resources and environmental resilience. Do research for renewable energy sources and develop sustainable production lines to avoid overgrowth and climate collapse of your new homeworlds. Will it end up in tremendous desolation or can you lead your colony into wealth and prosperity?

FEATURES & ROADMAP

Absolutely unique 360° open planets of different magnitude

A motivating bonus goal system is driving you into expansion

Over 30 individual constructs with more than 60 upgrades

Global simulation of spreading local ground pollution and worldwide emissions.

GAMEPLAY

Growth

Only cities with happy people will grow and very happy people will pay you some bonus cash. So you should take care of local pollution and nearby buildings with bad influence. Expanding colonies will be provided with additional landing permissions and research budget. Upgrade established technologies or develop new ones. Over 30 constructs and 60 upgrades with different advantages, influences and side effects are available and allow you to build your individual colony.

The strategic placement of your production facilities is vital:

The build radius around your city center is limited

Some buildings influence each other (e.g. you better don’t place a farm next to a coal power plant)

Different field types increase or decrease the productivity of your facilities (e.g. fossil resource fields)

Pollution has an impact on your food production

Some fields are blocked by rocks or forest (helps to balance the pollution but can also be lumbered for money)

Disasters

Incidents in your facilities can lead to chemical leaks, oil spills or even radioactive contamination. All of them having a really bad effect on your people and the food production. Maintain your buildings and fight catastrophes immediately to avoid this.

Ultimately, you will have to balance the growth of your civilizations greehouse gas emissions with the capabilities of your planet and technology. Otherwise global warming melts the iceat the polar caps and rising sea levels will flood your cities!

Story

The story will challenge your skills and moral: You stand between the profit goals of the interstellar corporations and the need to preserve the conditions of living for your people. Meet corrupt chiefs and shareholders while your company faces hostile takeover by larger corporations.

Each of the 5 missions takes place on another planet - one order of magnitude bigger than the previous. Every mission will have some unique elements, like cultural heritage sites or even incoming asteroids. Altogether, the story will have 10 to 20 hours of gameplay. Additionally, there will be a Free Game mode that allows you to build your colony in a relaxed way without any goals and a Time Trial mode that maximizes your expansion skills.

Imagine Earth is a world simulation/strategy game that is currently available in Early Access. Earth has been almost completely ruined and your job as a colony manager is to help setup and run profitable colonies on distant planets to earn some big bucks for your company. Balancing your resources in this game is very important and putting too much pressure on any one of power, money, food or goods (for consumption) can seriously affect your chances of being successful.

+Graphics are quite nice though some of the textures aren't particularly high quality+Simple UI which suits the game well and clearly displays the information you need+There is a sandbox mode where you can create your own worlds to colonize as well as the campaign mode+Relaxing to play and doesn't require full attention+Your actions have direct consequences on the climate and if your carbon dioxide emissions get too high +A wide variety of buildings that are unlocked as you progress+As you progress through the game you unlock new technologies and upgrades to technology/buildings you already have which increase the effectiveness of your colony+Buildings have a cool design+The world's are quite different to each other+Five different speed settings+Nice soundtrack+Steam leaderboards

+/-Updates aren't released very frequently but there are only two developers so it is understandable

-For what it is the €22,99 in germany / and 24,99$ USA price tag feels a bit overpriced especially as there are currently only 5 missions in the game and those five missions have little replay value-Currently no Steamworks features

Verdict:7

A good world simulation game but due to its high price I would suggest waiting for the game to get a sale or significantly more content.

Imagine Earth is an Early Access world management game. The game has a steady progression of being updated. The build we are on is stable and playable, giving several hours of entertainment. As it stands, the game is very polished, but lacks depth of content. The dev team is responsible on keeping the community (at least, I feel well informed by reading their news feed) informed on how things are progressing. They release content and interface updates quite regularly, following the needs of the people.

I feel that the money I have invested is well spent, and I hope to see a finished product.

As of today's posting (4/2/14), the game is still under development. Still, I'm having a lot of fun with the game thus far. While you're waiting for the review, feel free to check out these Alpha gameplay videos to see how it plays:

this game is awsome lots of fun if u want a good game that will keep u busy buy the game its well worth the 24.99 thay are asking for nd u will be helping tham get more funding so thay can get this game out of early access :) great work guys good job!

I love this game, it's beatiful and lucious with vibrant colours and an immersive sountrack. The mechanics of reaching population quotas while sustaining the planets ecosystem (sometimes even dealing with events like meteor impacts) are interesting, difficult and above all challenging. I would recomend this game to anybody that has ever enjoyed a strategy game and to all those that haven't.

this game is utterly fantastic i really enjoy the global warming theme i like that you can get the cities to flood ha ha

ok pros/conspros good graphics for cartoon lookgreat dynamic climate system if you pollute more than is being cleaned up its going to weaken the biosphere tornadoes and rising sea will flood your city cons looks ugly upclose no fusion power its in space i expect it to have futuristic tech like fusion power and antimatter in late gameoverall this game is awesome it feels like a light sandbox i love flooding cities

$25 is a bit steep for a game and more than I usually pay, especially for an early access game which I often worry will never be completed. However, in this case I made an exception and I'm glad I did. I believe it will be well worth it once the game is finished and am glad I could help out the developers.

So far it's a pretty good game (first three missions are available) and I was able to play through without too many bugs. Reminds a bit of Light of Altair in terms of the city building elements.

The one bug I did have was that research system was screwed up -- when you earned research stars you had to go back to the main menu before they would appear and you'd be able to invest them. I'm sure that will be fixed by the time they launch 1.0.

this is my first review,i see lot possitive reviews and i say i bye it,the game the worth 18 euro in summer sell and i say they worth it!the game is like geopolitical tycoon but much much better you build power plant supplice and farms but be cerfull for climat.one of the best game in steam

Wish i could recommend this game. Waited for it like 2 years when i played the demo. I was so happy when the game was getting worked on again. This game has potential but gets no updates. We all know how alot of early access games go and this one seems no different.Im happy the devs are having a great summer, too bad they wont work. So gl to them in game development. If i see the game get better i would love to change my "opinion". you get about 8 hours of fun right now so yea.

Way to hard spoils the exp only on second mission not enough room and silly coin system for research i have already done on 1st planet.Why so hard core wanted a more free build type of game not this more like a puzzle get 1 part wrong tuff you lose idea.